FOOD HAS been inextricably linked to the human experience from the earliest of times. As such, it is no surprise that it has made its appearance in literature, one of the artistic mediums that attempts to make better sense of the human experience. By paying close attention to the foods an author includes in the plot, we can enrich our engagement with the narrative. Imagining the colors, flavors, textures, and temperatures of certain foods the characters are eating can render the reader with further understanding of the novel’s themes, a scene’s ambiance, or the characters’ motivations. Whether food is a central part of the book’s plot or just an occasional aesthetic addition, this article displays different literature in which the food featured in them may render a delectable reading time.  

Why food is worth contemplating in literature

   Food is meaningful to the human experience. Its functionality is not limited to a form of sustenance. People gather around food to create culture, reminisce on memories or to create new ones, developing further connections and intimacy. It is vital in both keeping us alive and making our time alive worthwhile. 

   The Cooking Hypothesis by English anthropologist Richard Wrangham states that cooking—above perceived greater developments, such as the advent of agriculture—was the determining factor to distinguish our ancestors, the Homo erectus, from other animals. In his 2009 book, Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human, Wrangham explains that cooking requires a great amount of knowledge, social cooperation, and biological enablers. Our ancestors must have needed to know how to maneuver fire and understand the difference between raw and cooked ingredients. They must have also needed to establish trusted relationships with one another to bring about the ingredients, the fire, and the cooking process. Furthermore, cooked rather than raw food speeds up the digestive process, rendering the Homo erectus more time and energy to develop other aspects such as friendships and artistic endeavors[1]. 

   As such, food is inextricably linked to what makes humans “human.” An author’s deliberate addition of dishes, ingredients, among other elements, in his or her work can hence reflect such importance food holds. That is, as one of the artistic means through which the human experience is understood, questioned, and wondered upon, literature can often be found mingling with food. Similar to how many people do in real life, the characters in the story gather around food, which in turn intensifies their emotions, adds a timeless beauty to the moment, or furthers their desires. Reckoning such foods in the stories we consume can enrich our reading experience whereby our five senses and beyond can be stimulated in just a single reading.  

Filleting generational traumas and simmering class tensions in Free Food for Millionaires by Lee Min-jin

   Free Food for Millionaires was published in 2007 and is Korean American author Lee Min-jin’s debut novel[2]. The main character is Casey Han, a Korean American woman in her early twenties whose guilty pleasure is spending money on luxury. The story follows her struggles to reconcile her privileged status as a woman educated by elite institutions and her underprivileged one as the daughter of working-class Korean immigrants. Food, as the title of this work suggests, often acts as the backbone of the plot as it accompanies Casey and her relationships through dilemmas in which external markers such as social class, gender, and trauma influence her motivations and desires. 

   The Han family bap-sang[3] is the book’s first food appearance, and it plays an essential role in introducing the dynamics between Casey and her family, more specifically, her relationship with her father. The foods mentioned in this scene are water, steamed rice, kim-bap[4], and porgy with scallion sauce. Leah, the main character’s mother, is “[ladling] scallion sauce over roasted porgy” as she prepares dinner to celebrate her whole family being together. As they gather around the table, Casey’s father, Joseph, accumulates resentment towards her water drinking and they end up in a heated argument. 

   Joseph’s character is introduced through his memories around food—or the lack thereof. After being displaced to the South from his family in the North during the Korean war, Casey’s father connotes food with pre-war Korea nostalgia and the pain of the lost promises between him and his family. During dinner—as the book mentions he often does—he embarks on a lengthy soliloquy about his afflictions as a displaced person in the South. He talks about losing his family, starving while selling kim-bap on the streets, and the promises between him and his mother that he would “eat good hot food” while in the South and that the whole family would have a “feast” upon their reencounter. When Casey, annoyed by her father’s repertoire, mockingly finishes the last words of his story, Joseph gets up from the table and throws a mighty punch to her daughter’s eye, leaving it black and bleeding. 

   Food is key to understanding Joseph’s seemingly irrational and violent behavior towards his daughter. For one, the “steaming rice bowls” placed in front of his daughters are juxtaposed with his memories of selling kim-bap—a food that is often eaten cold and which he could not even afford to eat. This indicates that, like several Koreans who lived through the country’s years of poverty and starvation, Joseph views food with scarcity, hence his great appreciation towards it. 

   What is more interesting, however, is Joseph’s increasing annoyance towards Casey’s water drinking before dinner, as he believes that his daughters—Casey and her little sister Tina—“should eat heartily at the table.” Clearly, for Joseph, eating heartily represents more than showing a good appetite. He places high value on the whole family gathering and eating a lot of good hot food together because he sees it as a way to honor the lost promise between him and his mother. That is, Joseph unconsciously and vicariously wishes to console his heart’s afflictions and feel closure to his family in the North—which he never saw or heard of again—through his daughters’ hearty appetite. Through foods, and the characters’ engagement with them, one can understand that Joseph viewed Casey’s water drinking and mimicking as an unabashed ridiculing of his broken heart. 

   Closer examination of the main dish—scallion sauce over porgy—offers several insights into the Han family’s social class, the ambiance of the evening, as well as the characters’ development within such a setting. The simple constituents of the dish exude a homely coziness and the humble social class of the Han’s. Porgy, scallions, and soy sauce are all relatively affordable ingredients, and their maneuvering requires little to no specific culinary techniques. Furthermore, one of the most basic associations people make with homemade food is a simple dish of meat with a savory marinade. These characteristics indicate a cozy, family-oriented environment of a working-class family.  

   Specifically, porgy is a comforting meat in both flavor and texture. It is soft, mushy, and has a sweetness akin to that of shrimp. However, it contains many tiny and fragile bones that are difficult to fillet, often making it a challenge to eat. This contradiction of sweet and sharp within the fish can demonstrate that within the coziness of the scene, there are several complications hiding underneath the Han family’s skin—like little, fragile fish bones that are hard to discern at simple sight but can cause much pain when handled recklessly. This duality of the fish can also indicate the ambivalence of Casey’s feelings towards her parents, for though she feels grateful of her parents’ sacrifices, she abhors the trauma that is extended—or, better put, pricked—into her. 

   In Free Food for Millionaires food also plays a central role in emphasizing the characters’ social classes. Wealth and poverty become especially apparent through the foods that Casey eats with her self-made millionaire Korean boss, Sabine. What is more interesting, is how food plays a key role in representing Casey’s inferiority complex towards her boss, as well as Sabine’s superiority complex towards her. 

   Casey works as a part-time sales clerk at Sabine’s luxury boutique. She and her then-fiancée, Jay, are invited by Sabine and her husband for lunch to discuss details about their upcoming wedding. The menu in this scene consists of “spring pea soup, John Dory with salsify, cheese, and for dessert, poached pears and ginger yogurt” as well as coffee “with petit fours from Bonte” and a champagne “bottle of vintage Krug.” 

   These foods well represent Sabine’s ill-fated desire to provide for Casey. Sabine’s generosity is a rather self-indulgent one, with help often being clouded by pity and condescension for her. More importantly, Casey knows that Sabine’s largess of gifts and meals is part of her plan to convince Casey to take over the store when she retires. The colorful foods in the menu all have mild temperatures and the most notable flavors are acidic—from the cheese, peach and yogurt, coffee, and champagne—and buttery—from the fish and the pastries. These three characteristics indicate Sabine’s overall indifference to Casey’s genuine well-being, the sharp resoluteness of her intentions, and the smooth façade of glamour and kindness with which they are covered, respectively. 

   The dishes in this scene can also reflect Casey’s emotions during the afternoon. In addition to the pricey lunch, Sabine makes exuberant monetary offers to Casey—paying for her business school tuition and her wedding. These propositions accompany the several fancy courses, each with elaborate presentations and descriptions. Such displays of wealth have a clouding effect on the individual dishes. That is, the expensive fish, the high-end pastries, and the ritzy champagne all become inundated under each other’s ostentatiousness. This oversaturation reflects Casey’s inner turmoil during lunch. Throughout the afternoon, she feels both attracted to, but ultimately undeserving of such luxuries, creating inhibitions for her to fully enjoy the fine dining experience.  

Dicing intimacy in Sexy by Jhumpa Lahiri

   Sexy is a 1998 short story written by American author Jhumpa Lahiri[5]. The story follows Miranda, a beautiful American woman in her early twenties, who recently moved to Boston upon graduating university. She meets Dev, a sophisticated Indian man in his late thirties who works in investment banking. They soon develop a passionate affair while Dev’s wife travels to India for two weeks. In Sexy, food characterizes the relationship Miranda establishes as she navigates the intense yet fractured intimacy between her and her lover. 

   Initially, the food Miranda and Dev consume while his wife is in India is notably decadent, both figuratively and literally. Such intense dishes include “pulled pork and cornbread in Davis Square,” “sangria at the bar of a Spanish restaurant,” “foie gras[6],” and a “soup made with champagne and raspberries.” What characterizes every single one of these foods is either their indulgent fat content, their sensuous celebratory connotation, or both—indicating the enjoyable and passionate mood of the lovers. 

   However, Miranda’s innocence and lack of exposure to such luxuries stops her from enjoying them fully and taking them as what they are—pricier forms of leisure than the ones she is used to. Instead, she confuses these possibly meaningless demonstrations of glamorous affection as intimacy by giving them a value for being “first” experiences for her. Indeed, the wide array of flavors Dev introduces to Miranda signal the various other of her “firsts.” Dev was the first guy that paid for everything, sent her large bouquets of flowers, whispered her name while making love, and described her as “sexy.” 

   These “firsts” create an illusion of intimacy for Miranda between her and Dev. Such illusion is symbolized by the Indian foods Miranda exposes herself to in order to feel further proximity to him. These dishes include tandoori chicken, “plump samosas,” barfi, which the book describes as “diamond-shaped pieces of fudge covered with foil,” and gulab jamun, described by the story as “some bright orange pastries floating in syrup.” For anyone who has been the least bit exposed to Indian cuisine will soon recognize such dishes, which, for Miranda, were novelties. Her observations on such dishes that could be described as “generic” Indian food ultimately indicates the superficiality that has surrounded their affair from the beginning. 

   Dev’s wife’s return from India changes the dynamics of the affair, which is reflected in the new foods the lovers eat. Dev and Miranda now met in the mornings at her place. On her bed, they would eat a baguette paired with “pickled herring, potato salad, and tortes of pesto and mascarpone cheese” with their hands. Afterwards, they would make love on the bed covered with crumbs. What defines these aperitives are their cold temperatures, which foreshadows the diminishing passion between the lovers. The breadcrumbs over the bed, on the other hand, stand as the final witnesses to the lover’s enjoyable moments. In the end, Miranda realizes that all along, she had been “loving someone [she did] not know.” 

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   The role of food in each of these stories goes beyond being a mere prop. Rather, they become a reason for the characters to gather and experience the pleasures, afflictions, and happiness that life has to offer. That is, the foods seem to enrich the emotions of the characters or the situations they are in by wrapping them in warmth, acidity, or decadence. For Joseph, food was a means of reconciliation with an unresolved and traumatic past. On the other hand, for Miranda, food became an inaugurator to new experiences and a taste of womanhood. Ultimately, different colors, temperatures, textures, and flavors blend into the pages of these stories, making the experience of literature as sensuous, or perhaps even more so, than life itself. 

[1] Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human

[2] Goodreads

[3] Bap-sang: Korean term that refers to a table set with food  

[4] Kim-bap: Korean snack consisting of an assortment of vegetables and meats atop lightly marinated short-grain rice wrapped in roasted seaweed 

[5] JSTOR

[6] Foie gras: Liver of a duck or goose that is purposely fattened for consumption through a process called gavage